The Interaction between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Private Charities to Enhance Food Security in Low Income Families

Transcription

1 The Interaction between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Private Charities to Enhance Food Security in Low Income Families Anne Musa, Carlos Carpio, Ryan Williams, Tullaya Boonsaeng, Conrad Lyford Texas Tech University Contact author: Anne Musa: Selected Paper prepared for presentation at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association s 2018 Annual Meeting, Jacksonville, Florida, February, Copyright 2018 by Anne Musa, Carlos Carpio, Ryan Williams, Tullaya Boonsaeng, Conrad Lyford. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.

2 The Interaction between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Private Charities to Enhance Food Security in Low Income Families Anne Musa Carlos Carpio Ryan Williams Tullaya Boonsaeng Conrad Lyford Texas Tech University

3 Introduction and Background The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),formally called the food stamp program, is the largest anti-hunger program in the nation, which has assisted about 40 million lowincome Americans in 2017 to afford an adequate diet. Private food charities are nonprofit, community-based organizations that provide relief for the hungry. It was estimated that private food charities provide assistance to 46 million people including 14 million children,

4 Introduction and Background There has been a lot of research on SNAP but little has been done to analyze the relationship between the private and the public food programs as they relate to food security. The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance of factors affecting low-income household to participate in the SNAP program as well as the private food charities, and how these two programs have worked to enhance food security among low income households.

5 Literature Review Studies on the relationship between SNAP and food security on low income households o Use of cross-sectional and longitudinal data o They also analyze the effect of socio-demographic factors on participation o Gundersen and Oliveira (2001) and Nord & Golla (2009) evaluated the association between food stamps and food insecurity. o They found more food insecurity associated with SNAP participants. o Mabli and Ohls (2015) estimated the effect of participant in SNAP participation on food security. o They discovered that the SNAP participation reduced food insecurity in SNAP households by 6-17% and also severe food insecurity was reduced by 12-19%.

6 Literature Review Studies on the relation between participation in SNAP and Food Pantries Daponte (2000) and Bhattarai, Duffy, and Raymond (2005) evaluated the use of food pantries and SNAP among poor households and examined the factors that affects the choice of participation in both food assistance programs Bivariate Probit/logit model Socio-demographics associated with participation Positive correlation found between participation in SNAP and food pantries

7 Literature Review Studies on other SNAP related issues Carpio et al. (2014) investigated the effect of SNAP program on the distribution of food and nonfood expenditure across six subgroups. They found that the largest share of the total expenditure goes to food. Gregory et al. (2013) examined the extent to which SNAP participation affects the quality of participant s diet. They used Healthy Eating Index (HEI) to compared the scores of low-income households of participants and non-participants. They discovered that HEI scores are lower for participants than nonparticipants.

8 Methods This study analyses : The effect of socio-demographics on participation in SNAP and private food charities. The effect of SNAP and food charities participation on food security while accounting for endogeneity in the model. Results from this study aim to provide information to the policy makers on how the government-funded program and the private food reliefs independently and jointly assist in enhancing food security.

9 Data The Data used for this survey is the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) data, the data was collected between April 2012 and January The dataset captures both SNAP and non-snap participants of low-income and higher income households. A total of 4286 households were surveyed. SNAP participation is verified by the SNAP Administrative records ( to avoid measurement error). The data contains socio-demographics for individuals as well as households. Food charities participation was captured by considering participation in Food bank or receiving meals from community centers.

10 Model 1 Relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and participation r j = X rj β rj + u rj For X rj = Socio-demographics r = 1 if r > 0 r = 0 if r 0 j=individual household for j = 1,2,., n u rj = random error

11 Model 2 Effect of participation of food programs on food security. Probit model Procedure to control for endogeneity with the use of control function approach using the results from model 1. f j = X rj β rj + δr + ε rj for f = 1 if f j > 0 f = 0 if f j 0 j=individual household for j = 1,2,., n. f = dummy variable that represents food security. X = socio-demographic characteristics. r= dummy variable that represents participation in either SNAP or food pantry.

12 Model 2 Endogeneity r = participation in food programs is considered to be endogenous Self Selection To tackle the endogeneity issues, no suitable instruments were found so we used identification of functional form (Dong, 2009). o This works when the model is non-linear.

13 Econometric Procedure Identification. This involves two stages: 1. Estimating the probit model for participation and obtaining u rj u rj = r j X rj β rj 2. Estimating the endogeneity corrected model by adding u rj to the food security binary model f j = X rj β rj + δr + uγ + v rj The non-linearity in the model is used for identification.

14 Results. Frequency table of SNAP and food charities participation. n = 4714 SNAP Food Charities 0 1 Total

15 Summary Statistics (n=4714). Variable Mean Std. Dev. Variable Mean Std. Dev. Household size Other race Bachelors & above Own House Some college & diploma Own Car th grade &below Spring Midwest Summer Northeast Fall West Age South elder Married adult Male kid Hispanic child White Average income Black

16 Marginal effect of bivariate probit(sociodemographics on participation in both SNAP and Food charities simultaneously) Variable Marginal Effect Variable Marginal Effect Household size 0.010*** Black Bachelors &above *** Houseown *** 12th grade &below 0.012*** Owncar *** Midwest 0.007* Spring Northeast Summer West Fall 0.013* Married *** Age 0.000*** Male Pelder Hispanic ** Pkid White Pchild * rho 0.24*** Log-income ***

17 Marginal Effect of Socio-demographics on SNAP/Food charities Variable SNAP Food Charities Variable SNAP Food charities Household size 0.069*** 0.022*** Black 0.056*** Bachelors &above *** *** Houseown *** th grade &below 0.031** 0.027** Owncar *** *** Midwest ** Spring 0.058** Northeast Summer West ** Fall Married *** * Age *** Male Log-income *** *** Hispanic *** Pelder White Pkid Pchild *** **

18 Effect of Socio-demographics Household size, educational level, marital status, car ownership, income and child has same significant effect on both SNAP and Food charities. Household size has the largest positive effect on SNAP participation(69%). Educational level of 12th grade and below has the largest positive effect on Food charities program participation(27%). Region, race, kid and elder has different effects on the two food programs.

19 Marginal Effect of effect of SNAP/Food charities participation on Food Security(2nd Stage) Variable Marginal Effect Residuals SNAP 0.069** *** Food charities Marginal Effect of SNAP/Food Charities participation on Food Security without controlling for endogeneity Variable Marginal Effect SNAP -0.04*** Food charities ***

20 Summary Effect of participation on Food Security Identification through functional forms: Positive and significant effect of SNAP participation on food security. No significant effect for the residuals of private food charities. No Significant effect found for private food charities on food security. Without Controlling for endogeneity: SNAP and Food charities participants are associated with food insecurity(this is different from the result of the model that controls for endogeneity)

21 Summary SNAP participation increases food security by 7% No effect was found on the participation of private food charities on food security This could be due to : Mismeasurement Combination of data for private food charities. Without Controlling for endogeneity shows that SNAP/Food charities recepients are associated with food insecurity but controlling for endogeneity measures the effect of participation on food security

22 Next Steps There is need to investigate more on private food charities: Get the frequency of the aid. The dollar equivalent of the aid per time. Control for misreporting.

23 Thank you